[sudo-discuss] Erotica: superiority and inferiority.
GtwoG PublicOhOne
g2g-public01 at att.net
Mon May 6 01:19:05 PDT 2013
Sonja & Yo's-
Not absurd, it's in the language you used: "thoroughly inferior" and
"classed with it." Those are strong words, and unequivocal words.
Translate to housing and it sounds like the way home-owners often put
down apartment-renters. Speaking of which:
"There are lots of reasons people in single-family homes don't have
gardens or don't have them much, and ways that apartment-renters can
have gardens, although having a garden is easier if you have a house...."
In context, that sounds like an attempt to back out of a dead-end in an
arguement, but as long as the "thoroughly inferior" statement is not
repudiated, the subsequent statement also comes across as condescending.
The problem here is with "superior/inferior" and "class." You can call
this a class-struggle.
One thing we ought to do here is break out the subject matter: porn and
masturbation and relationship status ("status" in both senses of the
word, heh) are not the same things. It's good that porn is starting to
evolve in a direction that's more appealing to women, and less engaged
with sexual power-dynamics. It would also be a good thing if there was
a reasonable balance between genders and sexualities in terms of
percentage of people who play with themselves (I don't have the numbers
offhand). And it will be a great day when "relationship status" isn't
equivalent to "status."
But the fact is that we live in a culture of sexual phocomelia. For
those who don't know the word, it refers to the (otherwise-rare)
congenital disability that was famously caused in large numbers by
thalidomide, whereby people were born with no arms or legs, their hands
and feet attached directly to their trunks. Someone with phocomelia has
a uniquely difficult time eating, because they can't reach to pick up
their own food and put it in their own mouth. One way to solve this is
with a partner, where each person picks up the food for the other, and
puts it in the other's mouth.
Our sexual culture is like that: it starts from the assumption that you
require another person to meet a basic physical need. From that
assumption, applied to sexuality, comes all of the weird power-dynamics
around sex. And while it may be true for reproduction (plus or minus
cloning), it's not true for love (which has avenues of expression other
than sex), and for the neurochemical benefits (read: pleasures) and
other health benefits (such as reduction of risk for prostate cancer in
men) of sexual stimulation and orgasm.
The Abrahamic religious traditions, originating in cultures that were
harshly oppressed at the hands of the powers-that-be of their times, had
to conflate reproduction, love, and pleasure, and seek to control the
latter to ensure the former, else they would not have survived. That
conflation persists in the mainstream culture to this day, where it's
the equivalent of a state of civil emergency after the hurricane has
long since passed.
-G.
=====
On 13-05-05-Sun 11:43 PM, Sonja Trauss wrote:
>
> No that's absurd. There are lots of reasons ppl in relationships don't
> have sex or don't have it much and ways single people can, although it
> is easier if you have a partner.
> Also, comparing options means you must have them - if you don't have
> access to sex then you don't have access to it. Comparing it to
> masturbation, or comparing it to camping, or to pie, or to music, it's
> moot.
> The whole conversation hinges on the notion that you have access to
> both, which I think more people do than realize it.
>
> On May 5, 2013 10:00 PM, "GtwoG PublicOhOne" <g2g-public01 at att.net
> <mailto:g2g-public01 at att.net>> wrote:
>
>
> Sonja, Andrew, Et. Al.-
>
> So now the implicit assumption goes explicit:
>
> "Masturbation is a thing too thoroughly inferior to sex to be
> classed with it."
>
> The necessary and inevitable corollary to that is, "Single people
> are thoroughly inferior to coupled people." Care to argue that point?
>
> It wasn't long ago that us queerz were also subjected to
> "Homosexual sex is a thing thoroughly inferior to heterosexual sex."
>
> Inferior by way of "immoral," and for the longest time (and still,
> in many places), illegal. In a wide swath of the world, I can go
> to prison for who I love, and in a slightly less wide swath of the
> world, I can get beheaded in the public square or hanged by the
> neck at the end of a crane borrowed from the Public Works
> Department (as is the custom in Iran, 16-year-old queer guys
> included, go search BBC.com for that story).
>
> Comparisons based on assertions of one's own superiority and
> others' inferiority, are the last refuge of the will-to-power
> mentality that is exploitative, oppressive, and ultimately
> insecure of its own niche in the human social ecosystem.
>
> In any ontological sense, arguements about the superiority and
> inferiority of personal matters of taste among consenting adults,
> are groundless, pointless, and ultimately meaningless.
>
> Would anyone care to argue whether rock is better than rap or
> vice-versa, or whether jazz is better than country & western or
> vice-versa, or whether playing a piano, harmonica, guitar,
> saxophone, or banjo is better? Any such assertion of "better"
> (and its necessary corollary, "worse"), is nothing more than a
> linguistic confound of the phrase "I prefer."
>
> I prefer music X, sexuality Y, and pizza with Z on it.
>
> I have no need to prove to anyone, that any of those things are
> "better than" music Q, sexuality R, and pizza with S on it. And I
> will fight for the right to full equality among people who prefer
> music X or Q, sexuality Y or R, and pizza with Z or S on it.
>
> It will be a great day when people stop seeking to dominate each
> other over matters of personal choice and personal taste. It will
> be an even better day when people stop seeking to dominate each
> other altogether, aside from consenting adult dom/sub play;-)
>
> -G.
>
>
> =====
>
>
> On 13-05-05-Sun 12:29 PM, Sonja Trauss wrote:
>> mmm according to conservative readings of the bible, all
>> non-reproductive sex is sinful. masturbating and pulling out are
>> both sins, and in that way equivalent. So if you want to throw
>> around the 'puritanical' label, it would have to stick to the
>> idea that masturbation and sex are interchangeable, and not the
>> idea they they are two pretty different types of activities.
>>
>> Other women should pipe up here, but the only people who have
>> ever tried to tell me that "masturbation is a type of sex" have
>> been men. No, masturbation is not sex. In the same way that
>> vitamin pills are not food. Masturbation is a thing too
>> thoroughly inferior to sex to be classed with it. I guess, from a
>> male pleasure point of view, they are equivalent, if you cum from
>> sex or you cum from jerking off, you cum, who cares, but they are
>> not equivalent from your gf's pov. I would 1000% prefer my
>> partner to cum from fucking me than from jerking off. I get
>> nothing out of him jerking off, if he fucks me I will almost
>> surely cum.
>>
>> The idea that we should make more porn (for women!) has always
>> struck me as an example of men thinking women should be more like
>> men. Maybe women aren't that into porn, not because there's not
>> that much porn that women like, but because porn is lame and
>> boring. Maybe instead of women going against their natures and
>> learning to enjoy passively watching other people have sex, men
>> should go against their natures and learn to enjoy closing the
>> laptop, picking up the phone, waiting 15 minutes for your girl to
>> come over, and then fucking her.
>>
>>
>> On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 1:58 AM, GtwoG PublicOhOne
>> <g2g-public01 at att.net <mailto:g2g-public01 at att.net>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Sonja, Andrew, and Yo's-
>>
>> Whoa there! All this about "masturbation replacing sex"
>> reinforces an artificial duality that's ultimately founded in
>> puritanism, in which masturbation may not be "sinful" but
>> it's "not real sex."
>>
>> To paraphrase an old Campbell's Soup ad, "It's Sex for One
>> and that one is you!"
>>
>> What I personally find bizarre as hell, is the degree to
>> which our culture is so couple-normative, and the degree to
>> which sexual coupling is normalized and expected as the
>> primary axis on which lifetime relationships are based. This
>> when there's a near-infinite range of potential upon which
>> humans could base their relationships.
>>
>> Have you ever seen a couple that appeared to you to be either
>> overtly dysfunctional or just plain weird in the manner of
>> "what the hell could s/he possibly see in him/her?!" The
>> answer usually turns out to be "in bed," as in: they may be
>> totally incompatible in all other ways, but they have some
>> unique kink in common, or just screw like mad weasels, and
>> apparently that's enough to keep them together.
>>
>> Under all of this is the genetic competition algorithm, that
>> dates back to bacteria but seems remarkably incapable of
>> producing humans with the intelligence needed to overcome
>> war, climate change, and all the other forces of our own
>> making that threaten our near-extinction. In an era where
>> "the cybernetically-enhanced human" is a common cultural
>> meme, surely we can do better!
>>
>> Anyone who thinks that their precious genes are something
>> special (or that there is any such thing as a superior race),
>> is in for a rude awakening: we share well over 99% of our
>> genome with chimpanzees and bonobos. Selfish genes helped us
>> get from our birth as a species to the point where our
>> survival was assured. Since that time we have overpopulated
>> and overconsumed the planet, threatening our own continued
>> existence within our lifetimes.
>>
>> It's time to move beyond obedience to algorithms that no
>> longer serve us.
>>
>> -G.
>>
>>
>> ======
>>
>>
>>
>> On 13-05-05-Sun 1:22 AM, Sonja Trauss wrote:
>>>
>>> That study says nothing about whether masturbation does or
>>> doesn't replace sex. It says that teens who masturbate more
>>> have more sex, which makes perfect sense. These are things
>>> that you expect to see together, like umbrellas and rubber
>>> boots, but you would never say that the umbrella caused the
>>> boots, or vice versa. And this study says nothing about
>>> whether sex causes masturbation or the other way around.
>>> It also doesn't say anything about masturbation with or
>>> without porn (although I wish it did).
>>> Masturbation is all well and good, of course, but that's not
>>> sufficient to explain why porn is well and good.
>>> I'm super curious. I can't experimentally not watch porn and
>>> see what happens because I already don't, but if any of you
>>> do, then you will be able to tell me what you would be missing.
>>>
>>> On May 5, 2013 12:43 AM, "Andrew" <andrew at roshambomedia.com
>>> <mailto:andrew at roshambomedia.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Sonja,
>>>
>>> I disagree with your views on masturbation. For one, I
>>> don't think that masturbation causes people to have less
>>> sex. Here's a study a found by googling I'm sure there
>>> is more data to back up the fact that masturbation does
>>> not reduce the amount of sex someone is having.
>>>
>>> http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/womens-health/articles/2011/08/01/study-tracks-masturbation-trends-among-us-teens
>>>
>>> It is also just, in general a healthy practice.
>>>
>>> second, I can masturbate without porn, and with porn (as
>>> can most people).
>>>
>>> I really believe that part of being sex positive is also
>>> being accepting of masturbation as natural and healthy.
>>>
>>> --Andrew
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 12:25 AM, Sonja Trauss
>>> <sonja.trauss at gmail.com <mailto:sonja.trauss at gmail.com>>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Yeah .... so what if you didn't have anything, and
>>> you couldn't concentrate. Would you give up? Maybe
>>> the first day. Maybe even the 2nd day, but
>>> eventually you would be able to masterbate on your
>>> own I bet.
>>>
>>> I'm a girl and never encountered very much porn I
>>> liked at all. I *guess* a solution could be to make
>>> porn a girl would like, but my solution was to have
>>> sex instead, which has been overall great. It's
>>> forced me to get in contact, and stay in contact,
>>> with people I otherwise wouldn't have. Making porn
>>> that girls like, so they can join men in having an
>>> activity that allows them to have less sex, seems
>>> antisocial and a step backwards.
>>> Yeah the more I think about this the more absurd it
>>> seems that a crowd that is interested in expanding
>>> the audience for porn would overlap with a
>>> 'do-acracy' hackerspace crowd. Watching porn is
>>> watching, not doing.
>>>
>>> On May 4, 2013 7:53 PM, "Andrew"
>>> <andrew at roshambomedia.com
>>> <mailto:andrew at roshambomedia.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> People want porn for somthing easy to focus on
>>> while masturbating. Masturbating being a natural
>>> part of life. I also dont think that all people
>>> who can have sex with others, but don't , are
>>> doing so because they don't have the "skills"
>>>
>>> On May 4, 2013 7:20 PM, "Sonja Trauss"
>>> <sonja.trauss at gmail.com
>>> <mailto:sonja.trauss at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Or less representation of sex altogether.
>>> What does anyone need porn for?
>>>
>>> On May 4, 2013 7:10 PM, "Andrew"
>>> <andrew at vagabondballroom.com
>>> <mailto:andrew at vagabondballroom.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> When i ran an erotic event in oakland
>>> our crew made it a point to balence
>>> genders as much as possible. We had male
>>> and female co-hosts and male and female
>>> strippers.
>>>
>>> Also. Somthing to keep in mind is that
>>> there are more than two genders. In my
>>> mind objectification is not the issue.
>>> Representation is. Porn is mostly filmed
>>> from a hetero-cis-male perspective and
>>> because of that, taken as a whole, is
>>> exploitive. There is porn that fights
>>> this perspective and representation of
>>> sex and there needs to be more.
>>>
>>> On May 4, 2013 6:55 PM, "Sonja Trauss"
>>> <sonja.trauss at gmail.com
>>> <mailto:sonja.trauss at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Can I get a link for this gonorreah
>>> story?
>>>
>>> On May 4, 2013 6:42 PM, "GtwoG
>>> PublicOhOne" <g2g-public01 at att.net
>>> <mailto:g2g-public01 at att.net>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Romy & Yo's-
>>>
>>> Re. "womens' bodies with their
>>> faces cut off."
>>>
>>> Wow. Thanks for pointing that
>>> out. I never noticed that
>>> before (OTOH
>>> attempts to do "sexy" in
>>> advertising generally don't get
>>> my attention),
>>> but I vaguely recall seeing ads
>>> like that somewhere.
>>>
>>> I agree, a torso minus a face is
>>> depersonalizing and objectifying as
>>> hell, unless there's a very good
>>> reason for taking a photo that way
>>> (e.g. medical contexts). Being
>>> looked at "that way" produces
>>> the creepy
>>> feeling that the looker's
>>> intentions are non-consensual.
>>>
>>> The only borderline-legit reason
>>> I could see for doing it in clothing
>>> ads is, "we want you to imagine
>>> yourself wearing this, and we
>>> don't want
>>> to risk putting you off by
>>> showing a face that's
>>> substantially different
>>> to yours, so imagine your face
>>> on this person's body." But it
>>> would be
>>> foolish to think that's what's
>>> intended every time that
>>> photographic
>>> method is used.
>>>
>>> This brings up the question of
>>> what people find sexy in
>>> photography.
>>> For me (gay male), a photo minus
>>> a face is a non-starter: there's
>>> no cue
>>> for communication with the
>>> person. Nudes in general don't
>>> do it either:
>>> all the usual contextual cues as
>>> to someone's personality are
>>> missing,
>>> so why would I even begin to
>>> imagine being in an intimate
>>> context with
>>> someone I don't really know?
>>> I've always felt that way but
>>> now we have
>>> the HIV pandemic to reinforce
>>> it: in general it's not a good
>>> idea to get
>>> intimate with someone you don't
>>> know very well, because the outcome
>>> could be a life-threatening illness.
>>>
>>> For that matter, now that
>>> massively-drug-resistant
>>> gonorrhea is loose in
>>> the USA, which is hella' easier
>>> to catch than HIV and can kill
>>> you in a
>>> matter of days through a raging
>>> bacterial infection, it's probably a
>>> darn good idea for everyone to
>>> "get smart & play safe" ALL the
>>> time,
>>> zero exceptions, even more so
>>> than with HIV. In which case
>>> photography
>>> that portrays an objectified
>>> sexuality without communications
>>> isn't just
>>> gross and exploitative, it's a
>>> public health hazard that reinforces
>>> attitudes that put people at
>>> risk for their lives.
>>>
>>> -G.
>>>
>>>
>>> =====
>>>
>>>
>>> On 13-05-04-Sat 10:34 AM, Romy
>>> Snowyla wrote:
>>> > It's interesting to me how porn a
>>> > Nd erotica always advertise
>>> with women's bodies with their
>>> faces cut off
>>> > American apparel digs this etc
>>> > Lots of art theory discusses this
>>> >
>>> > I would love for any Sudo room
>>> event to break the mold and show
>>> men's bodies in any erotic theme
>>> as well ... Also would love to
>>> see the male body as the focus
>>> of any erotic film or dance to
>>> balance out the Imbalance and
>>> unnatural obsession with t and a
>>> we see on the porn industry
>>> >
>>> > Sent from my iPad
>>> >
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> >
>>> sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
>>> <mailto:sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org>
>>> >
>>> http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>>> >
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> -------
>>> Andrew Lowe
>>> Cell: 831-332-2507 <tel:831-332-2507>
>>> http://roshambomedia.com
>>>
>>
>>
>
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